Belize produces oil; should consumers pay $12.12 per gallon for fuel?

Tonight’s question is: Since Belize produces oil, do you think that consumers should be paying twelve dollars and twelve cents per gallon for fuel? Send your comments and responses using your SMART phones to 8686 or post your vote on our e-poll at channel5belize.com. You can also send an email with your comments to questions@channel5belize.com.

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all those countries that are rich in resources have the highest poverty rate.
instead of writing off mortgages and giving gangs money, those money wud be better invested in job creation, let di people work and earn a living

It is not this simple. Case Study: The US produces a lot of oil and are estimate that in a couple of years they will no longer rely on those countries that are not friendly to the US. Economist and the current President are saying that this mass production will not reduce the gas price, because this doesn’t depend on the President/country it depends on the World Market prices. So this is a country that has the technology to refine and the resources to extract in the US and around the world. How can Belize pull this off? Can the government afford to subsidize the fuel? This fuel price is indeed hurting the economy? Belizeans as well as the government need to be creative and resourceful. For example, buses that stop even mile to pick up people along the hwy use more disel, so they need to start using disignated bus stops to conserve fuel. I am sure if we do an energy study we can find ways to conserve and saving money.

The other question what should be ask is ” are we Belizeans benefiting from the oil industry?”
cause really a regular Belizean like me, I’ve never seen any benefit in no way, so who’s getting their pockets thick is not known. can channel 5 have a talk show to bring more info on what’s going on with this oil industry? or explain in which way is the country benefiting this oil stuff.

We produce but we do not refine… It’s like having flour to make bread , but don’t have Oven to bake it.. So what do you do , pay someone to bake it.. So we sell crude oil and buy gasoline.. The question is where is the MONEY FROM SELLING GOING…

Venezuela produces oil and the citizens only pay a few cents per gallon there. Belize could do the same if we had some intelligent politicians.
Trouble is that most rich politicians in Belize were once poor unsuccessful businessmen losers, but great liars and schemers so they fooled the people and got elected.
They could not run their own business so how will they run a country.

So we went from Belizeans paying $12 a gallon to accountability. Indeed both point are very important. Increase in fuel is definitely crippling the economy. The cane farmers in the North are suffering from that. Sugar cane is no longer a business because of this, farmers are working hard just to pay their loans in order to make another loan for next year. Their machinery are not being serviced properly because there is no money left to do so.

Anyways, accountability. Yes we do need that. There needs to be a independent board/committee that monitors fund coming in and see how it is disbursed and also to monitor and evaluate the impact and success on this oil industry on the environment and the people, especially the immediate communities and environement (rivers, roads, pollution..etc)

Belize does not have a refinery to convert oil into gasoline and diesel, therefor they have to send it to countries that refine it and send it back for consumption. The US produces lots of oi but we don’t have enough refineries. Our price is high for the same reason.